1. Technical Field
This invention relates to wireless communication terminals arranged for operation in wireless communication systems and more particularly to a wireless communication terminal arranged for receiving and transmitting large amounts of data in a wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Wireless telecommunication networks have grown very rapidly in the past decade as a result of substantial breakthroughs in the cost of wireless communication terminals, otherwise known as mobile stations. Such mobile stations exist in many forms from those which are mounted in automobiles to portable stations to hand held stations. Most of the wireless networks in use today are structured as one of existing cellular systems.
Various types of cellular systems have been described which provide radio telephone service to a large number of mobile subscribers using a relatively small number of frequencies. Such service is provided by dividing a service area into a number of cells and reusing the frequencies in non-adjacent cells. This cellular principle has permitted a large growth in the amount of wireless telecommunications that can be carried over the allocated radio spectrum thus allowing a huge growth in the number of wireless communication subscribers. One cellular system is described in The Bell Systems Technical Journal, Volume 58, January 1979, Number 1, particularly in papers entitled Advanced Mobile Phone Service: Introduction, Background and Objectives by W. R. Young and The Cellular Concept by V. H. MacDonald. Another cellular system is a digital system which is based upon time division multiple access (TDMA) techniques and is defined in Telecommunications Industry Association Interim Standard (TIA IS) 54. Yet another cellular system employs code division multiple access (CDMA) techniques and is defined in TIA IS-95. Still another cellular system combines TDMA and frequency division multiple access (FDMA) techniques and is known as the global system for mobile communication (GSM) which was developed by Groupe Special Mobile of the European Conference of Posts and Telecommunications (CEPT) and its successor, the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI).
While major technological breakthroughs have occurred in wireless communication terminals for communicating within cellular systems, many features, which now have become available to a telephone user at a residence or office, still remain unavailable to a user of a wireless communication terminal. Such features are available to the telephone user at the residence or office primarily because the user's telephone connects directly to a subscriber wire line. It is now desirable, and also technically feasible, for more of these features to be made available to a user of a wireless communication terminal.